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2020: A Year Defined By Healthcare & Digital

2020: A Year Defined By Healthcare & Digital

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Healthcare Vertical Software

Thus far, the year 2020 has been defined by “healthcare” and “digital”. The coronavirus pandemic has sent shockwaves through healthcare systems across the world. Public and private health systems quickly risked paralysis from the outbreak and were forced to confront the limitations and costs of their processes. This – and the need for social distancing – caused an accelerated shift to digital, speeding up the implementation of digital alternative processes such as apps, telehealth and web-based resources. In some cases, this shift was rapid – as with the UK NHS’s switch to remote physician consultations. In others, it was extended and troublesome – as with the implementation of the UK’s track-and-trace app, for instance.

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Q2 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

Overall, the shift to remote working and the stay-at-home imperative have pushed telemedicine to the forefront. A McKinsey survey conducted among 213 European physicians suggests that 55 to 58 percent of them believe that telemedicine will play a significantly greater role in the future.

In a similar vein, many pharmacy and prescription medication services now need to work online, too, as individuals continue to avoid pharmacies and medical practices for fear of the virus, subsequently enjoying new levels of convenience. We therefore expect to see more activity akin to Amazon’s 2018 acquisition of PillPack in a crossover between the digital commerce and healthtech spheres.

Furthermore, health IT services and BPO will grow more as healthcare providers will accelerate digitisation and reach the limits of in-house implementation and have no other choice but to outsource to specialised third-party firms. These are likely to reap the benefits of the crisis.

Meanwhile, the most prolific acquirers such as Philips, TabulaRasa or Varian are, so far, laying low this year, but we expect them to come back strong in 2H2020 and beyond once healthtech priorities become clearer and the global economy adjusts to a new set of realities.

M&A Summary

Valuations retain momentum Valuations in the healthtech space have been high for the best part of the last five years. In the first half of 2020, the trailing 30-month median EV/S multiple dipped slightly to 3x following a 4x peak in 2H2019. Despite previous volatility, EBITDA multiples are still very high, coming in at 17.7x in 1H2020. This growth has been driven particularly by high valuations in the Healthcare Vertical Software segment – the largest subsector covered in this report.

Transaction volume continues to increase Transaction volume is on the rise, with 131 transactions recorded in 1H2020. This upward trend since a significant dip in 2H2016 and 1H2017 has taken us back to the peak levels observed five years ago. Meanwhile, 60 per cent of deals took place in Q1 and 40 per cent in Q2 – a split which alludes to the cautiousness of buyers after the markets crashed in March 2020 (though they have since made a healthy recovery).

Healthcare Vertical Software

Private equity remains prominent buyer group Private equity firms became increasingly active in the healthtech space in the run-up to 2018; however, the market share of financial buyers has since decreased slightly. That said, financial buyers still constitute a substantial part of the buyer universe. Interest rates are not expected to rise soon, and access to cheap debt will continue to fuel these financial buyers’ acquisition activity.

Top Acquirers – PAST 30 MONTHS

Although it featured at the top of the acquisition table between 2017 and 2019, Philips has now been overtaken by other healthcare giants such as TabulaRasa or Mediware – despite the fact that neither of these companies made any purchases in 2020 either.

CGM made two acquisitions just before the coronavirus outbreak, picking up the German and Spanish assets of Cerner, and Italian telemedicine software provider H&S Qualità nel Software.

In addition, Elekta AB, a Swedish company that provides radiation therapy, radiosurgery and clinical management for cancer and brain disorder treatment, acquired Finnish firm Kaiku Health in February. Kaiku’s patient monitoring software and mobile application has modules for more than 25 types of cancer and is in use in over 40 European cancer clinics and hospitals

Healthcare Vertical Software

Trends, largest deals & subsector breakdown

  • Regional deal-making sees European targets acquired by more local acquirers
  • First signs of deals influenced by Covid-19, e.g. deals targeting respiratory disease detection software
  • Telemedicine services continue to thrive as Covid-19 pushes everything online and people steer clear of in-person consultations
  • Private equity and financial buyers continue to invest and acquire, accounting for almost a third of all transactions in the sector in the first half of 2020
  • Health IT services and BPO thriving as healthcare providers reach the limits of their capabilities and look to third-party firms for assistance
  • Pharmacy and prescription services firmly online in a new age driven by Amazon’s acquisition of PillPack in 2018

Geographical breakdown

Over the past 30 months, 63 per cent of European targets were bought by acquirers that were also European. This figure is a little lower for Q1 2020, before the coronavirus outbreak.

However, this number has jumped to 100 per cent if we look only at deals closed in Q2 2020, pointing to more regional dealmaking for 2020. This is likely to be due to travel restrictions and local lockdown measures strongly impacting the prospects for intercontinental M&A.

Meanwhile, across global M&A activity, North American targets have maintained their majority share of deals, accounting for 84 per cent of all deals in Q1 2020 and 76 per cent in Q2 2020.

Healthcare Vertical Software

Sub-sector overview

Already the largest subsector within the healthcare space, in 1H2020 the Healthcare Vertical Software segment saw the most transaction volume on record with 88 deals – a 20 per cent increase on the last reporting period. In fact, transaction volume has grown consistently since 2017.

On the valuation side, so far 2019 has not been beaten. In 1H2020, the trailing 30-month median revenue multiple came in at 3.6x, while the EBITDA multiple reached a high 17.3x.

It is also worth noting that, while previous EBITDA multiples on the below graph were very high, they included a handful of exceptional deals which closed at high EBITDA multiples (>50x). Thus, it is safe to say that the current median is more representative of valuation trends in the Healthcare Vertical Software segment.

Respiratory illness stays front of mind

Given the concern over respiratory illnesses as a result of Covid-19, this deal came as no surprise. AireHealth, an American provider of respiratory care management through a mobile app, acquired BreathResearch, a respiratory healthcare firm that detects fluctuations in respiratory health. Its VitalBreath virtual care software helps patients, caregivers and clinicians to be more informed in respiratory care, enabling faster response to exacerbations and translating to fewer emergencies and fewer hospitalisations.

Through the deal, AireHealth adds to its capabilities all of BreathResearch’s assets including employees, intellectual property, research and published works. AireHealth also gains all patents related to respiratory drug delivery, medication adherence and analysis of breathing sounds using machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Invitae targets pharmacogenetics

In March, Invitae, the publicly-listed medical genetics company, purchased YouScript, a clinical decision support and analytics platform, for $79 million; and Genelex, a pharmacogenetic testing company, for $20 million.

According to the acquirer, despite its broad utility, the incorporation of pharmacogenetic information into routine medical care has been slow. Combining Genelex testing with clinical decision support using YouScript software allows clinicians to easily navigate this information when making prescription choices at the point of care.

YouScript’s software pairs a patient’s pharmacogenetic profile with published drug and gene interaction information to assess the risk for adverse drug events and possible side effects. Health systems can also use YouScript at population scale to identify patient populations at highest risk for adverse events.

Genelex offers pharmacogenetic testing that analyses the genes that are important for understanding variation in how people metabolise and respond differently to prescription medications. The testing process includes pharmacist review, patient- and clinician-facing reports, as well as access to clinical decision support for the treating provider.

The use of YouScript in combination with Genelex has been shown to reduce adverse events, costs and hospital readmissions.

Health IT Services & BPO

Sub-sector overview

After a strong rebound in 2H2019, transaction volume in this segment declined again in 1H2020, with 15 deals recorded. However, the trailing 30-month revenue multiple remained stable, coming in at 2.4x. There were not enough disclosed EBITDA multiples to warrant a reliable trailing 30-month median EBITDA multiple.

Almost all the transactions in this segment were carried out between a north American buyer and north American seller.

Segment sees largest deal

The Health IT Services & BPO segment saw the largest deal in 1H2020. In March, private equity firm Veritas spent $5 billion on the health and human services business of DXC Technology, i.e. the assets which provide health software consulting and integration for Medicaid hospitals and healthcare providers in the US. For instance, DXC HHS enables users to manage patient health records, monitor quality of care in real-time, and manage bookings and admissions, laboratory information, electronic medication, pharmacy and mortuary processes. DXC said it would use the proceeds from this sale of the Medicaid services business to pay down debt.

This is not the first time Veritas Capital and DXC h. ave worked together. In 2018, components of Veritas’ business, Vencore and KeyPoint, along with DXC’s federal business, were folded together to create the DXC spinoff Perspecta.

Cerner divests underperforming RCM unit EHR giant Cerner shed its German and Spanish assets to CGM in February and followed with the sale of its underperforming RevWorks business to R1 RCM in June for $30 million. With the deal, Chicago-based R1 gains access to RevWorks’ commercial, non-federal client relationship. Cerner will also extend R1’s EHRagnostic revenue cycle capabilities to its clients and new prospects.

According to Healthcare Dive, the multi-billion-dollar revenue cycle management (RCM) sector has few players but is expected to grow as hospitals struggling with suboptimal collections rates and weakening margins look to outsource back-end functions.

Acquirer R1 has remained largely unaffected by the pandemic, reporting a revenue spike of more than 16 per cent year over year in the first quarter. The 17-year-old RCM player has embarked on a campaign of inorganic growth this year to solidify its position in the unsaturated market, also snapping up patient engagement player SCI Solutions in April.

EHR & Information Services

Sub-sector overview

Several successive reporting periods since 2016 were characterised by volatility and an overall decline in transaction volume. However, off the back of renewed momentum in 2018, deal volume climbed back to higher levels in 1H2020.

EV/S multiples have seen some volatility over the years but remain resilient overall, as the trailing 30-month median remains just below 3x.

Harris invests in EHR

In February, software giant Harris acquired Doc-Tor.com. An American firm based in New Jersey, Doc-Tor.com provides easy-to-use, cloud-based practice management systems for physician offices, allowing for efficient workflow and scheduling through collections and analytics. The Doc-Tor.com transaction also included the acquisition by Harris of New Ultimate Billing LLC, a full-service revenue cycle management (RCM) provider with 20 years of combined administrative leadership and medical billing experience. Doc-Tor.com will operate within Harris’s Amazing Charts business unit, and Ultimate Billing will be a stand-alone business unit within the Harris healthcare suite of solutions.

UKsees rare deal in the space

In May, public company Induction Healthcare Group acquired Zesty for $15 million. Zesty provides patient medical records management SaaS in the UK, allowing patients to consult their clinical record, manage appointments, read correspondence, provide feedback and attend remote consultations. Through the acquisition of Zesty, the Induction Group will be able to coalesce platforms that integrate patients, .clinicians and healthcare information sources across multiple sites and EPRs. By pooling their resources, the new group hope to develop their products faster and improve their growth opportunities.

Online Health Services

Sub-sector overview

In 1H2020, transaction volume in this segment has returned to healthier levels. Revenue multiples have also remained stable, as the trailing median 30-month EV/S multiple came in at 3.8x – lower than 2017 or 2018 but higher than the multiples seen five years ago.

Emergency response software garners interest In March, Central Research Inc (CRI), a provider of customised management and financial service solutions for the public and private sectors, acquired Global Emergency Response (GER) for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Georgia, GER provides web- and mobile-based software for emergency status tracking and situational awareness information, for healthcare, emergency response and governmental organisations in the US. The software includes features for patient tracking, incident coordination, resource tracking and .family reunification. The
events of 2020 such as the coronavirus pandemic or the Californian wildfires have no doubt reiterated the need for adequate digital solutions in case of emergencies.

Edtech and healthcare collide in 2020 In May, private equity firm LLR Partners acquired TrueLearn, a subscription-based online medical exam preparation service, for an undisclosed amount. TrueLearn was previously owned by Kian Capital.

According to PE Wire, e-learning solutions such as those offered by TrueLearn are in high demand as institutions adjust to asynchronous and remote classroom environments. In recent months, TrueLearn has expanded its offerings beyond physician education to adjacent healthcare markets including pharmacy and allied health. This shift has helped meet rising needs of .medical schools, residency programs and allied healthcare programs, which seek to train learners in remote settings, while continuing to address the problem of healthcare workforce shortages.

Conclusion & Contacts

In the six months since the publication of Hampleton Partners’ last healthtech report, the pressure on health systems has reached unprecedented levels as the Covid-19 pandemic has extended its grip globally.

Forced to ration services and cancel treatments, and with a vaccine still some way off, healthcare providers are having to turn to new technologies if they have any hope of maintaining, let alone enhancing, future healthcare services for patients adjusting to digitally-enabled new lifestyles in a changed global economy. This has continued to drive both M&A volumes and values across healthtech. Already the largest subsector within the healthcare space, in 1H2020 the Healthcare Vertical Software segment saw the most transaction volume on record with 88 deals – a 20 per cent increase on the last reporting period and a continuous trend since 2017.

Covid-19 has also currently changed the nature of deal making in the sector. Travel restrictions and local lockdown measures have strongly impacted intercontinental M&A with Health Services and BPO transactions, so far, in 2020 becoming exclusively intra-North American and European healthtech targets becoming solely the preserve of European acquirers.

Jonathan Simnett

Director

jonathan.simnett@hampletonpartners.com

Jo Goodson

Managing Partner

jo.goodson@hampletonpartners.com


About Hampleton Partners

Hampleton Partners is at the forefront of international mergers and acquisitions advisory for companies with technology at their core.

Hampleton’s experienced deal makers have built, bought and sold over 100 fast-growing tech businesses and provide hands-on expertise and unrivalled international advice to tech entrepreneurs and the companies who are looking to accelerate growth and maximise value.

With offices in London, Frankfurt, Stockholm and San Francisco, Hampleton offers a global perspective with sector expertise in: Automotive Tech, IoT, AI, Fintech, Insurtech, Cybersecurity, VR/AR, Healthtech, Digital Marketing, Enterprise Software, IT Services, SaaS & Cloud and E-Commerce.

See the full report here.

The post 2020: A Year Defined By Healthcare & Digital appeared first on ValueWalk.

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Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super…

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Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super Tuesday primaries have got it right. Barring cataclysmic changes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president in 2024.

(Left) President Joe Biden delivers remarks on canceling student debt at Culver City Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, Calif., on Feb. 21, 2024. (Right) Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump stands on stage during a campaign event at Big League Dreams Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 27, 2024. (Mario Tama/Getty Images; David Becker/Getty Images)

With Nikki Haley’s withdrawal, there will be no more significantly contested primaries or caucuses—the earliest both parties’ races have been over since something like the current primary-dominated system was put in place in 1972.

The primary results have spotlighted some of both nominees’ weaknesses.

Donald Trump lost high-income, high-educated constituencies, including the entire metro area—aka the Swamp. Many but by no means all Haley votes there were cast by Biden Democrats. Mr. Trump can’t afford to lose too many of the others in target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Majorities and large minorities of voters in overwhelmingly Latino counties in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and some in Houston voted against Joe Biden, and even more against Senate nominee Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).

Returns from Hispanic precincts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts show the same thing. Mr. Biden can’t afford to lose too many Latino votes in target states like Arizona and Georgia.

When Mr. Trump rode down that escalator in 2015, commentators assumed he’d repel Latinos. Instead, Latino voters nationally, and especially the closest eyewitnesses of Biden’s open-border policy, have been trending heavily Republican.

High-income liberal Democrats may sport lawn signs proclaiming, “In this house, we believe ... no human is illegal.” The logical consequence of that belief is an open border. But modest-income folks in border counties know that flows of illegal immigrants result in disorder, disease, and crime.

There is plenty of impatience with increased disorder in election returns below the presidential level. Consider Los Angeles County, America’s largest county, with nearly 10 million people, more people than 40 of the 50 states. It voted 71 percent for Mr. Biden in 2020.

Current returns show county District Attorney George Gascon winning only 21 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan primary. He’ll apparently face Republican Nathan Hochman, a critic of his liberal policies, in November.

Gascon, elected after the May 2020 death of counterfeit-passing suspect George Floyd in Minneapolis, is one of many county prosecutors supported by billionaire George Soros. His policies include not charging juveniles as adults, not seeking higher penalties for gang membership or use of firearms, and bringing fewer misdemeanor cases.

The predictable result has been increased car thefts, burglaries, and personal robberies. Some 120 assistant district attorneys have left the office, and there’s a backlog of 10,000 unprosecuted cases.

More than a dozen other Soros-backed and similarly liberal prosecutors have faced strong opposition or have left office.

St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner resigned last May amid lawsuits seeking her removal, Milwaukee’s John Chisholm retired in January, and Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby was defeated in July 2022 and convicted of perjury in September 2023. Last November, Loudoun County, Virginia, voters (62 percent Biden) ousted liberal Buta Biberaj, who declined to prosecute a transgender student for assault, and in June 2022 voters in San Francisco (85 percent Biden) recalled famed radical Chesa Boudin.

Similarly, this Tuesday, voters in San Francisco passed ballot measures strengthening police powers and requiring treatment of drug-addicted welfare recipients.

In retrospect, it appears the Floyd video, appearing after three months of COVID-19 confinement, sparked a frenzied, even crazed reaction, especially among the highly educated and articulate. One fatal incident was seen as proof that America’s “systemic racism” was worse than ever and that police forces should be defunded and perhaps abolished.

2020 was “the year America went crazy,” I wrote in January 2021, a year in which police funding was actually cut by Democrats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. A year in which young New York Times (NYT) staffers claimed they were endangered by the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) opinion article advocating calling in military forces if necessary to stop rioting, as had been done in Detroit in 1967 and Los Angeles in 1992. A craven NYT publisher even fired the editorial page editor for running the article.

Evidence of visible and tangible discontent with increasing violence and its consequences—barren and locked shelves in Manhattan chain drugstores, skyrocketing carjackings in Washington, D.C.—is as unmistakable in polls and election results as it is in daily life in large metropolitan areas. Maybe 2024 will turn out to be the year even liberal America stopped acting crazy.

Chaos and disorder work against incumbents, as they did in 1968 when Democrats saw their party’s popular vote fall from 61 percent to 43 percent.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 23:20

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Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The…

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Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reviewed no data when deciding in 2023 to keep its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place.

Doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in Washington in a file image. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said on May 1, 2023, that the end of many other federal mandates “will not impact current policies at the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

He said the mandate was remaining for VA health care personnel “to ensure the safety of veterans and our colleagues.”

Mr. McDonough did not cite any studies or other data. A VA spokesperson declined to provide any data that was reviewed when deciding not to rescind the mandate. The Epoch Times submitted a Freedom of Information Act for “all documents outlining which data was relied upon when establishing the mandate when deciding to keep the mandate in place.”

The agency searched for such data and did not find any.

The VA does not even attempt to justify its policies with science, because it can’t,” Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times.

“The VA just trusts that the process and cost of challenging its unfounded policies is so onerous, most people are dissuaded from even trying,” she added.

The VA’s mandate remains in place to this day.

The VA’s website claims that vaccines “help protect you from getting severe illness” and “offer good protection against most COVID-19 variants,” pointing in part to observational data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that estimate the vaccines provide poor protection against symptomatic infection and transient shielding against hospitalization.

There have also been increasing concerns among outside scientists about confirmed side effects like heart inflammation—the VA hid a safety signal it detected for the inflammation—and possible side effects such as tinnitus, which shift the benefit-risk calculus.

President Joe Biden imposed a slate of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2021. The VA was the first federal agency to implement a mandate.

President Biden rescinded the mandates in May 2023, citing a drop in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. His administration maintains the choice to require vaccines was the right one and saved lives.

“Our administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations,” the White House said.

Some experts said requiring vaccination meant many younger people were forced to get a vaccine despite the risks potentially outweighing the benefits, leaving fewer doses for older adults.

By mandating the vaccines to younger people and those with natural immunity from having had COVID, older people in the U.S. and other countries did not have access to them, and many people might have died because of that,” Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine on leave from Harvard Medical School, told The Epoch Times previously.

The VA was one of just a handful of agencies to keep its mandate in place following the removal of many federal mandates.

“At this time, the vaccine requirement will remain in effect for VA health care personnel, including VA psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistants, engineers, housekeepers, and other clinical, administrative, and infrastructure support employees,” Mr. McDonough wrote to VA employees at the time.

This also includes VA volunteers and contractors. Effectively, this means that any Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employee, volunteer, or contractor who works in VHA facilities, visits VHA facilities, or provides direct care to those we serve will still be subject to the vaccine requirement at this time,” he said. “We continue to monitor and discuss this requirement, and we will provide more information about the vaccination requirements for VA health care employees soon. As always, we will process requests for vaccination exceptions in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.”

The version of the shots cleared in the fall of 2022, and available through the fall of 2023, did not have any clinical trial data supporting them.

A new version was approved in the fall of 2023 because there were indications that the shots not only offered temporary protection but also that the level of protection was lower than what was observed during earlier stages of the pandemic.

Ms. Manookian, whose group has challenged several of the federal mandates, said that the mandate “illustrates the dangers of the administrative state and how these federal agencies have become a law unto themselves.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 22:10

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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